


What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

by fforsythiaaa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Relationships, Brooklyn, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, New Year's Eve, New York City, No Plot/Plotless, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Third Person Limited, Romantic Fluff, Therapist!Remus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:41:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28992345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fforsythiaaa/pseuds/fforsythiaaa
Summary: Sirius had put his hand under Remus’s chin and kissed him gently on the mouth as though they had done it a million times before. “See you next week.” Just like that.That week between Christmas and New Year’s always feels a little disorienting, with no real attention paid to the exact time or the day of the week. But for Remus, with hardly a word between them while Sirius was upstate with the Potters and Lily, it was dizzying.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 23
Kudos: 33





	1. Friday

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger/Content Info: alcohol use, marijuana use, cigarettes, non-explicit sex.  
> There's referenced past sexual assault with no details, but there's description of the support of friends/professionals afterwards; also, it's not brought up during/in the context of sex.  
> Although Christmas is mentioned, there's no additional celebration of it. I HC Remus as Jewish and Christmas is just a date on the calendar here.  
> Take care of yourself and please don't hesitate to let me know if there's a tag or TW/CW you think I should add.
> 
> This work is a roughly 6k one-shot masquerading as a multichapter; you can use the "Entire Work" button to read it like that. Either way, I really encourage you to get into the vibe with [the Kacey Musgraves version of the title song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvXpkH-gl3Q)
> 
> I got really caught up in the nostalgia and hope and melancholy and romance of the last few days of December, and then this story just snowballed from one little scene into... this. Thanks for letting me share it.
> 
> You can hang out with me [on tumblr here.](https://fforsythiaaa.tumblr.com/)

They had kissed at the Christmas Eve party. Remus had been in Marlene’s tiny kitchen, washing as many of the cups that had piled in the sink as could fit on the drying rack, when Sirius came in wearing his scarf, hat, and coat, unzipped. They smiled at each other, hugged goodbye, and Sirius had put his hand under Remus’s chin and kissed him gently on the mouth as though they had done it a million times before. “See you next week.” Just like that.

That week between Christmas and New Year’s always feels a little disorienting, with no real attention paid to the exact time or the day of the week. But for Remus, with hardly a word between them while Sirius was upstate with the Potters and Lily, it was dizzying.

Remus woke up so much earlier than he needed to on the 25th that he decided to walk to work. Well, not all the way to work, probably, but certainly up to the Brooklyn Bridge and over it. The weather was nice enough for a walk, but too cold for a bike ride; most importantly, he needed to be doing something besides sitting in his apartment, thinking. At work, there was always some kind of paperwork he could be handling, at the very least. And today it would probably be easy to get roped into setting up folding chairs and moving tables for what his coworkers all called “Christmas services,” an evening of group sessions and an alcohol-free dinner and a generally nice enough place to be on a day that was hard for a lot of their clients. 

James had nearly cried when Remus brought home the news that he’d be the counselor on duty for Christmas and miss the trip upstate. But it was obvious, because James was an open book, that he was proud, too, because this job had been Remus’s dream for so long. The Rivera-Boggs Center offered support services for queer youth, who were mostly not in touch with the families that raised them. It’s where Sirius had gone in their senior year of high school to get help with his legal emancipation paperwork. It’s where Marlene got hormone therapy on a sliding scale when her college health insurance didn’t cover it. Remus had been, too, just once, the day after his nineteenth birthday -- and once the dust had settled a little, he changed his major and started a long slog towards becoming a therapist. 

It had been Remus’s first week on staff when the counseling team discussed holiday coverage. He had studied and hustled for _years_ to be able to do this work. What was he supposed to do? 

“You were not supposed to _volunteer,_ ” James had whined. “You have plans. _We_ have plans. The same plans as the last five years.”

And now, Remus thought, James was right. If he hadn’t been scheduled to work, he would have left Marlene’s party with them and spent six hours squished in the backseat of Lily’s tiny Kia on the way to Monty and Effie’s house. They all would have trudged in the kitchen door at 3 a.m., careful not to wake up the Potters, and headed straight to the same bedrooms they stayed in every year. And Remus would have held Sirius back to talk about what had happened. They’d be exhausted and honest. He wouldn’t be facing down a whole week of _waiting_. Wondering. Not knowing. 

Instead, he left the party and went back to his own apartment, thinking that maybe he’d had a little more than his own share of the spliff Marlene had rolled them, or that maybe he had _said_ something. He looked in the mirror before he brushed his teeth that night and noticed his mouth drifting up into half a smile, unbidden. But all the _wondering_ and _thinking_ made him forget about that before morning.

By the time his Christmas morning walk had gotten him to the bridge, Remus had gone back and forth seven or eight times wondering if he’d imagined the kiss. But he had proof, kind of, in the text he’d gotten from Sirius at midnight, presumably once his shift of the driving had ended: 

_I never minded that the Potters are in a complete cell service deadzone when all the people I wanted to contact were in the same house as me. I’ll console myself knowing you’re taking good care of the alphabet mafia while we laze about up here._

And then:

_I’m really glad you came to the party._

And then: 

_Miss you already._

The long walk was working exactly as he’d intended it to, and soon his mind made room for everything else around him. The bridge was more crowded than he had expected. Putting one foot in front of the other, smelling the brackish water underneath, listening to snippets of other languages each time a group of tourists walked past him, the unmistakeable buzz of a bike coming up on his right — it was good, at first. He focused on those things. He didn’t think about the night before. He didn’t think about the wrinkled gift ribbon in his pocket that Sirius had handed him because it was just exactly Remus’s favorite shade of green. He didn’t think about the eye-roll and wink Sirius sent him from across the room when Lily put Fleetwood Mac on _again_. 

He didn’t think about the look on Sirius’s face right before the kiss. Well, fuck — _now_ he’s thinking about it. Remus couldn’t help it. There was nothing _new_ in that look. It was the same way Sirius always looked at him. Nothing special had happened that night, at least not that Remus could remember, and anyway - wouldn’t he be able to see it, if Sirius was thinking about making a leap like that? Wouldn’t there be something in his eyes? Doubt, or fear, or at least that glint that signaled he was about to charm his way into whatever it was he wanted? 

Remus shook his head and moved out the path of a woman with a selfie stick. He was sure that Sirius had always looked at him that way. 


	2. Saturday

The thing is, he found himself thinking, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Almost happened.

Remus stared past the pages of his novel at the suds, sheets, and towels tumbling around in the washing machine. He didn’t usually hate the laundromat so much, but on the 26th he felt cooped up. Laundry had seemed like a useful chore to keep his mind occupied. It was just so _boring_. He settled for bouncing his leg and letting his thoughts race.

There was the time freshman year of college when they had almost kissed in the dorms. James was napping on his bed, and across the room Sirius and Remus sat next to each other with their readings for Intro to Sociology. Sirius had sighed out, “same here, Jamie,” and rested his head on Remus’s shoulder for a few minutes. 

In the laundromat, his face was getting hot just remembering how panicked he had felt at finally getting that closeness with another boy. Another guy. A man. Remus placed his book over his knee to press the backs of his cold hands to his cheeks, while he looped the memory over again: he let his shoulder relax, he felt Sirius move a hand to his bent knee, he tilted his cheek just a little into his soft black hair, he turned his face down towards Sirius’s, he saw his grey eyes blinking open, he didn’t blink or move or breathe, he thought _yes, this_ , and then he heard James sit bolt upright and throw the comforter on the floor. “I have class!” James yelled, and Sirius nearly fell off the bed laughing, and that was the end of that. 

Until just after graduation, when Sirius was reeling from his second dramatic breakup in six months, and he’d paused his rant about how unfair the whole thing was to look Remus in the eye and ask, “Why couldn’t we just date each other, huh? You wouldn’t hurt me like this. Never.” Remus, who was desperately clinging to a relationship with an older man that even then he _knew_ was doomed, said nothing, not sure whether it was a real question or not. He thought up responses for weeks afterward.

But they’d grown out of that. 

Hadn’t they?

His instinct was to ask Sirius. “Do you remember…?” he’d start, and Sirius would cut him off, singing “the twenty-first night of September!” like he always did. And Remus would have to sing along, because he just couldn’t help it, before trying to get Sirius to answer the damn question. 

The damn question being: why didn’t they ever just date each other, huh? 

It hadn’t come up again, not seriously, and Remus tried now to figure out why as he moved the wet laundry across the dingy tiles to the dryers. There just hadn’t been time, even in fourteen years of knowing each other. When you tried to add up the time that they were both out, both single, both living in the same borough, and then when you accounted for Remus’s first year of grad school and the eleven long months after Sirius’s 20th birthday party when they avoided each other at all costs — there just hadn’t been time. 

Until now, Remus thought, and the words seemed to flood his body like he was drinking them. He crossed his arms to keep the feeling from spilling out of his chest before he could name it, but then it was gone, and all he had left was the same overthinking he had woken up with. The dryer still had twenty-seven minutes on it, and there were still five days before Sirius came home, and Remus had never been particularly patient.


	3. Sunday

It was Lily, in the end, who couldn’t hold out a whole week without any phone service or wifi. “I’m on a _landline,_ Remus. I don’t know a single person who still has a landline.”

“You know the Potters,” Remus quipped, halfheartedly.

“Yeah, yeah. How’s your week been? We miss you up here.”

“I miss you too. I’ll come next year.” He heard Lily yelp on the other end before James’s voice was in his ear. 

“Remus! We miss you! Lily’s no good at Monopoly. She won’t let us do the drinking game part.”

“You mean drinking while playing Monopoly?”

“Come on, it’s more nuanced than that.” 

Remus shook his head. It was not more nuanced than that. “Well, you’ll just have to make that part of the objective. Finish your drinks without letting Lily know what you’re up to.” 

“You’re a genius. My money’s on my dad for winning that one. Hey, Sirius is here, too, want to talk to him?”

“Uh.” James’s voice distorted as he pulled the phone away, not waiting for a response. Good. Remus didn’t know for sure what words would tumble out if he let himself try to speak. It was between _yes, please, I need to_ and _fuck, no, how can I?_ and he couldn’t explain either of those options to James just now.

“Hi,” Sirius said, quietly.

“Hi.” Remus paused, and hoped, and opened his mouth. “You kissed me.” 

Ah ha. So that was it. After days of wanting to talk to the one person he usually talks to, that’s what Remus could come up with? A statement of facts? He tried not to let the silence on the other end of the line feel like a punishment. 

“I did,” Sirius finally said. “Was that — okay?”

“Yeah. Of course,” he added. “I just wondered why.” 

The laughter caught Remus off guard. “I didn’t have a reason.” Sirius let his voice sink back into the low tone he had answered the phone with. “I didn’t. It seemed logical. It wasn’t even logic. It seemed —"

_Inevitable_ , Remus’s mind supplied, without permission.

“— natural, you know? Like it had happened before, a million times.” Sirius was smiling on the other end of the phone, he could hear it. “They’re calling me for dinner. We won’t be back until really late Wednesday night, but I’ll see you at the party, right?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll meet you there when I’m done with work.” 

“Okay. Yeah. I can’t wait.”

When the line clicked, Remus let himself fall backwards onto the bed. He couldn’t wait, either.


	4. Monday

In the dream, he’s waiting for the train at West 4th Street. Well, he’s not exactly waiting. It must be winter, because he’s bundled up in his parka and his snow boots, he has one of the knit hats that Sirius lives in from November to March tugged down over his ears, and he’s walking up and down the platforms. First one side, then the other. Then up the stairs to start again. Finally, there it is: a gleaming wood bar with a ceramic pitcher and a tall glass. He starts to drink, but the water gets everywhere. It’s down the front of his coat, wet on his throat, splattering on the cement floor, and with every drop he’s getting thirstier and thirstier. 

When he wakes up, he stands in front of the kitchen sink in his underwear and gulps down water while the details come to him, backwards, as the details of dreams always do. It’s four a.m. It must be eighty degrees in his apartment. 

“I really need to buy a humidifier,” he mumbles. The radiator pings in agreement. 


	5. Tuesday

On the 29th, Remus left work at just ten after four, and dragged his feet through the slush to Dorcas’s bar. He took his usual spot at the end farthest from the door. 

“It’s going to be a slow day today, I can feel it,” Dorcas said, bringing him something fizzy and slightly orange in a tall glass. “Thank god I have my visitor squad here.”

“I’m a squad of one, today. Sirius and Lily are upstate with James and his parents. Unless Marlene comes by later?”

“No, she’s got a deadline.”

Perfect, Remus thought, sipping the mystery drink. Dorcas could get a little over-excited and distractible on the days they post up at the bar to keep her company, and he needed to talk to her. “What am I drinking?”

“It’s just a bitters soda. You look dehydrated, you’re not ready for cocktails yet.”

“Thanks,” he snarked. He _was_ dehydrated, and he hadn’t slept a full night through since Christmas Eve — weird dreams — but she didn’t need to say it out loud. “Well, barkeep, want to help me come up with good advice for someone that needs it?” 

She rested one hand on the bar and leaned in. “You know me too well. And I know you’re not going to tell me who we’re advising, but I want to play anyway.”

Remus laughed, almost forgetting that he was trying to keep a secret here. He didn’t need to; he knew that. Just for now, though, he wanted this to be his. And Sirius’s, he supposed, but that was something else. “I’m asking you because you have experience in this. We’re advising someone who’s thinking about maybe being a little friendlier with their best friend. So tell me what your headspace was like right before you and Marlene started dating.”

Dorcas hummed and adjusted the floral bandana holding her locs off her face. “Well, it wasn’t so much headspace as it was a multi-dimensional panic spiral. I would just — I probably spent three hours a day, like, fantasizing, imagining different variations on the scene where I’d finally tell her. They were so sappy and just completely unrealistic.”

“Sappy? Fantasizing? Wow, that doesn’t sound like you at all, Dorcas,” he deadpanned.

She swatted a dishtowel at him. “I know, I know. But it got so out of control. And finally I was like, I can’t do this to myself anymore. So I tried to sit down and imagine what would _really_ happen if I told her everything.” A gust of cold air pushed through the bar when the door opened, and Dorcas turned on her heel to get drinks for the straight couple that had walked in. 

Remus took the moment to think about that. He had never done that kind of fantasizing. He hadn’t — well, he hadn’t been sitting on an all-consuming crush for six months like Dorcas had, so maybe there was a reason for that. But even now, it wasn’t the _maybes_ and _what nexts_ that had him missing his stop on the train or washing his hair twice. (Isolated incidents, this week, he was sure of it.) It was all the moments that now seemed to have a new heading, everything that gave him that same unnameable feeling behind his sternum that the kiss had given him: that May, when Sirius found him after his graduation to say, “I’m so proud of you,” softly, as though they were in a chapel instead of an arena. The August before that, in Sirius’s apartment after the funeral, when he asked if Remus would make him some tea with honey. 

“And, you know, granted, that was something my very handsome therapist friend encouraged me to do, so of course it worked,” Dorcas continued, after she’d poured two beers for the customers, and a tiny one for herself. “It wasn’t as fun as the sappy fantasizing, but I couldn’t realistically imagine Marls saying anything that would, you know. Hurt.”

“That was good advice,” Remus said, mostly to himself. 

“Have I mentioned he’s humble, too?”

“Sorry — yeah. I forgot about that. But it worked, right? Here you are.”

“Here we are,” she singsonged. 

“Were you nervous?” Remus blurted out, worried she was about to change the subject before he’d gotten the answer he came for. “When you started. Were you anxious about it?”

She fiddled with the stack of napkins on the bar between them. “I mean, I was. You remember. I was kind of a mess.” 

Remus remembered, all right. One night at a potluck, when Dorcas had almost put an electric kettle on the lit stovetop because she was so bewitched watching Marlene shuffling a deck of cards at the table, Sirius had grabbed him by the elbow and whispered, “one of us has to snap her out of it, and I’m nominating the one who’s actually dated a girl before.” 

“But also, once I really thought about it, the whole thing made so much sense and it was like —” she turned her hands up, looking at Remus expectantly. “Like, when I go to the beach, the only way I’m getting in the water is if I run straight into the ocean as soon as I get there. And then you can’t get me _out_ of the ocean. And once I’d made my mind up about Marlene, it felt kind of like I was running at the ocean, which doesn’t exactly feel nervous, but maybe…” she trailed off, searching for the word. 

“Like you’re bracing yourself?” he finally offered. 

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I guess like that. And in hindsight, it was so obvious. The whole thing was really just inevitable.” Dorcas turned back to Remus, as though she had just remembered he was there. “If you tell Marlene I compared our relationship to the fucking ocean, she will tease me for eternity, so please, _please,_ remember that I have a key to your apartment and I’m not above childish pranks involving shaving cream in places it doesn’t belong.”

He stayed a while longer, taste-testing new cocktails Dorcas was adding to the menu, and cracking up at her impressions of all her aunties at Christmas. On the way back to his apartment, he tried to imagine what it would be like to talk to Sirius about this. About them. About there being a _them_ to talk about. 

It was a nice walk home. 


	6. Wednesday

Sirius had either completely lost his mind or somehow managed to commit a pocket dial on the Potters’ landline. At least, those were the only two options Remus could come up with for why he was looking at a fucking voicemail notification on Wednesday afternoon. 

“ _What_ a faux pas,” he muttered out loud, waiting on the corner of 2nd Ave and 10th Street. He’d been walking the long way to work most days. He pressed play and turned up the volume.

“Heyyyy it’s me. I hope you’re having — uh. A good week,” the message started. “We really miss you up here. Monty and Effie got really competitive during the secret-Monopoly-drinking game you invented, and ended up so plastered they told us the story of how James was conceived, so I’m sure you’re missing us, too.” Remus loved hearing that laugh, even over the scratchy recording. 

The voice shifted then, a little lower, some secretive quality Remus couldn’t name. He’d heard Sirius use that voice before, mostly late at night, for conversations both sober and not about feelings, futures. How appropriate. 

“I feel like our conversation got cut off the other day, so I was kind of hoping to catch you. Use my words, you know. I just—" Remus strained to hear over the sirens rounding the next avenue over. “I don’t know if I said something that made it seem like I wasn’t thinking? I mean, I wasn’t _thinking_ , but I’m not — it wasn’t a careless mistake. It wasn’t careless. Not a careless mistake. Just really, really important that I tell you that. Immediately. 

“Anyway, I’m rambling, and I know you, and I know there’s no way you’re going to listen to a voicemail. So. I miss you. And I’ll talk to you soon. See you tomorrow.”

Remus replayed the message a couple times on the walk, and once more in his office with the door closed. He started drafting a text: 

_i listened to your voicemail_

Then what?

_i listened to your voicemail 6 times, because your laugh always sounds so good, and when you ramble, it’s sweet and wonderful._

Nope. Fuck. Since when does he have to _draft_ texts to Sirius? 

His thumb hovered over the audio call icon, wondering if that was actually a better idea. Remus wasn’t usually one for phone calls. At least this way, though, it could be really done, without agonizing over every word and every minute that the text went unanswered.

The automated message repeating Sirius’s phone number answered immediately. 

“Hey. It’s me. Believe it or not, I listened to your voicemail. I was on my way to work and listening to it with my headphones in, and I was smiling like an idiot, apparently, because an old lady in a Bernie sweatshirt outside of Veselka’s yelled ‘that’s the spirit!’ as I walked past her. So, I guess I’m not allergic to voicemails, after all, and at the very least there’s a socialist grandma on the Lower East Side who approves.”

He laughed into the phone, thinking how much Sirius would have loved to witness that. Remus imagined if he had been there with him, walking close together against the wind.

“Uh, anyway. Wanted to let you know I got it. Drive safe, okay? I’ll see you at New Year's.”


	7. Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated the rating to M & added a few tags so you know what you're getting into. The TW/CW info in the header notes back on Chapter 1 are also updated for the rest of the story.  
> There's one more chapter after this. I wanted to post them together, but really couldn't wait. ❤️

James and Lily’s apartment is packed on New Year’s Eve. The party is actually spilling out of the doors and windows. While waiting for someone to hear the buzzer and unlock the door, Remus hears his name, and looks straight up to see Marlene’s long blonde hair trailing over the high edge of the roof. 

“Where you been? It’s 11:30 already!” she yells down. There’s a plastic crown tangling in her bangs.

Dorcas’s face appears, too. “Was it the G train?”

“Isn’t it always the G train?” he yells back up. Remus is so sick of the G train. “I had work until 10, but then I waited at Metropolitan for forty minutes.”

“Poor baby. We’re going back in, we’ll buzz you up.” 

He’s no sooner inside and free of his coat than Lily is trying to shepherd him back out to the roof for the fireworks. A tray of brittle plastic champagne flutes from the dollar store tips in her hands, and Remus grabs two before taking the tray away from her and the new dress she’s had picked out for six weeks. “I’ll be up in a minute. Let me just find your brother-in-law,” he explains, but she’s already swept along in the crowd.

It’s not so much _finding_ Sirius as going straight to where he always is when the place gets crowded like this. He brings the two glasses into the tiny bedroom at the end of the hall and passes them through the window to Sirius, who is sitting on the fire escape, dangling one leg over the side through the metal railings. Remus climbs out to settle next to him. He holds out two fingers for a drag of the cigarette in Sirius’s hand. 

“And what are you manifesting in the new year, Remus?” Even with his eyes fixed on the twinkling christmas lights in the window across the street, Remus knows he’s smirking.

“‘Manifesting?’ You’ve been talking to Marlene, huh?”

“Of course. Everyone else does resolutions that they know they’ll quit by January seventh or eighth. But the _truly enlightened_ , or whatever, are just making stuff happen.” Sirius takes a long drag of the cigarette and holds it back over. “So?” 

“I don’t know about manifesting anything. You should probably work on _manifesting_ quitting smoking, though, for real this year.” Remus can tell he didn’t quite land the joke. Nervous, maybe. He pulls so hard that he can see the paper burn, the cherry lengthen. 

“We’ll see,” Sirius says, his voice back to the tone he’d used on the phone the other night. It’s not whispering, but it’s quiet, like he’s trying not to wake someone.“Hey. I should’ve asked you, first. On Christmas Eve. I’m sorry I didn’t ask.” 

“I think —” but Remus has to stop. What does he think, again? He’s lightheaded, maybe from smoking too fast, or from the height. There’s a curious feeling of relief and sureness and determination filling the space beneath his collarbones. The unnamed feeling. The _inevitable_ feeling. “I think you didn’t ask because you knew what the answer was going to be.”

“Did _you_ know?” asks Sirius, moving around in the little space to face Remus and rest the empty plastic glass carefully on the windowsill. 

“I do now.” 

Sirius reaches a hand out and brushes his cold thumb against Remus’s neck, sneaking in under the collar of his sweater. He realizes how warm he feels, even though it must be 25 degrees out, and there’s Sirius’s hands at the base of his skull, in his hair, another on his waist, pulling a little; Remus gives in, thinking for some reason about running into the ocean, feeling swept up when they’re chest against chest, and why are they on a fire escape where it’s impossible to get as close as they should be? All of a sudden the noise of the party on the roof stops, just for a second, before starting the countdown at ten! nine! eight! 

Why stop now, though? 

Why wait another seven seconds for midnight when they’re here, finally, after thousands of midnights come and gone again? 

It’s like drinking when he finds Sirius’s mouth with his, when he pulls back just enough to press on, against parted lips, smoky and sweet from the cheap champagne. Sirius is holding him there, patiently, until Remus can’t bear to sip so slowly and reaches up to draw Sirius in, lips, tongue, teeth, soft breath with his, one hand on his jawline. There’s nowhere for them to move closer. It doesn’t stop Sirius from arching up into the kiss. Remus can tell from the fingers gripping at his waist that there’s a _later_ to this, maybe when they’re not four floors above the sidewalk, but right now he can’t stop the pouring of _inevitable, yes, this,_ over his mouth and chin and throat. 

Remus needs to stop for a second to breathe. He needs air, but he needs to breathe this in. Sirius keeps his eyes closed for a moment longer, and he breathes that in, too. There are fireworks and cheering, somewhere far away, it seems, and a few of their friends singing Auld Lang Syne a little too slow, in a key that’s not good for anybody. They kiss again. Why stop now?

“Remus,” starts Sirius, in a whisper, “let’s go inside. Let’s sneak out before the party comes down off the roof. I want to—” but Remus interrupts with his warm mouth against Sirius’s neck. “You can keep doing tha—t, but pretty soon you’re gonna remember you’re afraid of heights.”

Not anymore, Remus thinks hazily, but he gets up anyway, feeling static at every point they _were_ touching but _aren’t_ touching now while they climb back in through the window. They gather their coats from James and Lily’s bed and bolt down the stairs. Sirius can’t stop laughing and it echoes through the foyer until he pushes open the heavy front door, when it’s just his eager bark and the distant crackle of fireworks together in the night. They walk quietly, quickly. It’s just a few blocks more. Then the apartment door is locked behind them and Remus is backed against it, feeling under the hem of Sirius’s shirt, mouthing at his bottom lip, as Sirius slows and stops.

“Hold on, hold on. This is okay, right?” He’s looking at Remus carefully, really asking. It’s dark, but he looks nervous, and Remus wants to lay a hand on his forehead, kiss his cheek. “You’re not, just, bored, or something?”

“Why would I be bored?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want this to be a ‘wow, New Year’s was so wild I accidentally slept with my best friend’ kind of thing.” 

Remus feels his heart wrench. “I’m not doing anything on accident. This isn’t some careless mistake.” Sirius doesn’t lift his hands from Remus’s arms, but relaxes back, as if it might change the answer. It doesn’t. Remus waits until their eyes meet and tries again, a little softer: “Sirius. It’s not like that for me. That’s not how I feel about you.”

“Me either,” Sirius says, and he doesn’t let Remus go, just leans down a little until their lips touch, rolls his hips back down. Close, closer. 

I should say more, Remus thinks. I should commit every movement to memory. I shouldn’t rush. I shouldn’t mess this up before it starts. But then, he tilts his head back to make room for Sirius, kissing hungrily at his throat, and there’s no more _I should, I shouldn’t_ , only _yes, this, everything, now_. 

They know each other so well, already, bodies included. Ask either one about the other and he’ll prove it easily: the rhythm of his footsteps on a weekend morning, or the wilting of his shoulders when he’s getting tired but won’t admit it — it’s as much a part of knowing him as his birthday or how he takes his coffee. This, though, this is new, and Remus hears his own breath catch with the thrill of what he doesn’t yet know. _If I touch his back like this, will he unpin me from the wall? If I press my thigh here, will he walk backwards for me? Will he pull me back against him on the bed? Take off my shirt, take off his? How does his wrist feel under my hand? Does he close his eyes when I do this?_

His whole body is rushing with the newness, with the learning. The orange light of the city comes in hazy through the curtains on Remus’s hipbone, bent knee, casts purple shadows across his torso where Sirius leans over him on the bed. Sirius is using that tone of voice, the low one, to ask “can I…?” 

and “like that...?” 

to say “oh”

and “yes”

and “Remus”

and Remus loves knowing what those words sound like in that voice of his, loves knowing how it feels to respond “please” and “there” and “Sirius.” He loves knowing the shade and spread of the blush on Sirius’s bare chest. He loves knowing that even with his eyes shut and his pulse rushing in his ears, he can feel the crescendo of Sirius breathing against his skin, and he loves knowing that Sirius can feel it, too. He loves knowing that heat. He loves that when they’re both spent, skin slick, tangled together, the laugh that leaves Sirius’s red mouth is the same one he’s known this whole time. 

“Hey,” Remus whispers hoarsely, letting his head roll to the side to get a better view. Sirius is laid on his back, too, one hand flung up on the headboard, the other resting heavily on Remus’s thigh. He just hums in response. 

“Yeah, same.” 

It’s almost normal, Remus thinks, for them to be quiet together, late at night. How many times had they sat up in the same room after a party or a show, not ready for bed, but with nothing to say, either? 

And then Sirius drags the sheet across them clumsily, curls up on his side, and lays his ear to Remus’s chest, sighing out while Remus tenderly moves the damp hair off his forehead. It’s not really normal. Not yet. But it’s easy, like they’ve done it a million times, and Remus isn’t thinking about it anymore, just wading evenly back into sleep. 


End file.
